MADISON, Wis., June 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Cellular
Dynamics International, Inc. (CDI) today announced an agreement
with iPS Academia Japan,
Inc., who will distribute CDI’s
iCell® Cardiomyocytes, the first commercially available
product based on induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), in
Japan.

This distribution agreement brings the vision of the two
pioneers of iPSC technology,
Dr. James Thomson and
Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, a step closer to making the technology
widely available to researchers worldwide and thus impacting human
health and biological research. Thomson is CDI founder and Chief
Scientific Officer, and Yamanaka is a member of iPS Academia
Japan’s scientific advisory board.

Drs. Thomson and Yamanaka concurrently published in
Science and
Cell, respectively, in 2007 on their breakthrough iPSC
research, whereby they turned ordinary human skin cells into
pluripotent stem cells with the same characteristics and potential
as embryonic stem cells.

iPS Academia Japan was originally established to manage the
patents and technology arising from the work of Dr. Yamanaka of
Kyoto University. CDI was the first foreign company granted a
license to Yamanaka’s iPSC patent portfolio by iPS Academia Japan,
announced
in May 2010.

CDI is the world’s largest manufacturer of cellular tools for
drug discover

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